Cloudlike Figures
by merurikku
Summary: HarryXLuna. Love blossoms for what may seem like an unlikely couple...Rated T for now, just in case.
1. Chapter 1: Under the Oak Tree

BY RIKKU

A/N: Let's get this straight before I begin- I actually 'ship' Ginny/Harry nowadays, but before book 6, I thought Harry would be cute with either Ginny or Luna. So I 100 support the canon, but this isn't canon, now, is it?

CHAPTER 1

Luna Lovegood sighed in exasperation. She knew that Harry still didn't understand that she still had feelings for him. He was being rather friendlier than usual to her lately, but it was only because they were rapidly becoming what one might call 'friends'. She smiled slightly at the thought-- she, 'Loony Lovegood' was becoming friends with the famous Harry Potter.

She was sitting in the Ravenclaw common room attempting to finish her Potions assignment. It wasn't coming along very well- her thoughts were elsewhere. The Ravenclaw common room was slightly quieter than all the others; not necessarily because the Ravenclaws enjoyed studying more than the other houses, but because, on the whole, they enjoyed quiet, intellectual endeavors more than the others. Luna rather enjoyed reading and pondering life, but at the moment she was feeling a bit restless.

So without another thought, she dropped her books into her bag and set off toward the portrait hole. She decided that she was in the mood to sit by the lake, and so began to walk to the grounds. When she finally exited the great oak doors, she looked out toward the lake and noticed that not many people were out. It was, in fact, a bit of a cloudy, colder day. She was wearing several layers and a scarf, so she was quite toasty, but it appeared that many others had not thought it worth the trouble. However, one group sitting under a large tree caught her attention.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were apparently trying to work on some assignment. Hermione was furiously scribbling away, but Ron and Harry both seemed to be lost in thought. Harry was actually thinking about Luna Lovegood herself, though she did not know it. He couldn't quite place what it was about her, but her presence made him calm and at peace with the world. Nobody else could do that for him. He hadn't even realized that his thoughts were drifting toward her until Hermione broke him out of his reverie.

"Harry! Ron! Are you two working?"

Ron looked taken aback. "Obviously, Hermione! What do you think we're doing with these quills in our hands?"

Hermione glared at him briefly. "I'm not going to be able to look over your work tonight, you know. I have my own work to catch up on."

"That's out of character. Usually you've done your work the day it's assigned!" Harry said, surprised by Hermione's unusual unattentiveness to her homework.

Hermione shrugged, "I've been busy," she said, glancing at Ron, who was smiling down at his paper. Hermione and Ron were unofficially going out.

Harry recieved a pang of jealousy. Since Cho Chang, he had not found anyone who he was interested in romantically. Well... unless you counted Luna... but...

His heart jolted. What was he thinking? That he liked Luna Lovegood? He supposed it was a possibility, but the thought had not quite occured to him yet. And anyway, he thought, she was in her own little world and was unlikely to be interested.

Luna, who had placed herself under a nearby tree, was having similar thoughts about Harry: about how he couldn't possibly interested in her as more than a friend, and how she had a feeling he was interested in Padma Patil anyway. There was, of course, no evidence behind this assumption, but there is Luna Lovegood for you.

'That's the thing that's great about her', thought Harry, 'she's not afraid of what people think of her and her weird theories'. He smiled and glanced out across the grounds. He felt another skip in his heart as he saw Luna sitting under a tree not far from where he was. He blushed a bit as he realized that she too was looking at him. They waved shyly at each other before turning back to their own thoughts.

A/N: So I guess just a bit of an introduction tonight, but it's getting pretty late so I thought I'd stop. Anyway, tell me what you think so far :). If you guys like it, I'll continue. If not, I won't be bothered and might start a different one, lol.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Hermione, who had finished whatever assignment it was that she had been working on, insisited that the two boys stay put while she went off to the library.

"What do you need to go to the library for?" asked Harry, incredulous that Hermione would leave them to do everything on their own.

"I... I need to check out a book for the Transfiguration assignment..." she said, although Harry noticed that a slight blush appeared on her face. He had no idea why, but shrugged. "Well then, why don't we come with you? I mean, we have the same assignment," he said, pointing to himself and Ron. But Ron didn't seem too keen on going to the library.

"Erm, not just now, mate. Let's just sit here for a bit," he said, looking down at his paper.

"Right, well, I'll be off then," said Hermione, rushing off to the library, but first taking a meaningful glance at Ron. They seemed to know something that Harry didn't. He shook his head and tried to return to his paper.

About ten minutes later, Ron hurriedly began to pack his bag.

"Where are you off to?" Harry asked, becoming slightly suspicious of his friends' behavior.

"Just thought I'd, er... go practice some Quidditch," he said, fumbling with his last book.

Harry did not believe him, but knew better than to offer to join Ron. He and Hermione had been acting like this for a while now; running off on their own and not allowing Harry to join them. He had come to believe that they secretly went to meet up with each other. He didn't mind- much- but he was becoming slightly lonely, and it made him even more jealous of their relationship. He sighed and waved at Ron, who had already begun to walk off.

Luna, who was still sitting under the nearby tree, noticed that Harry was now quite alone. She began to get nervous, but fought her fear and stood up to go join him. She walked over to his tree and sat next to him.

"Hello Harry," she said dreamily.

"Hi Luna," he replied, his face brightening at the sight of her. She blushed. He blushed back. "Er, having a good day?" he asked, only slightly aware of the heat in his face.

"Oh, quite. All of my Nerclaks are gone!" she replied, lifting her hair to show him the back of her neck. Harry didn't really care to ask what Nerclaks were, but he felt butterflies in his stomach at the sight of Luna's neck.

"Where did Ron and Hermione go?" Luna asked, looking around as if expecting them to pop out of thin air.

"Oh, well, they wanted some time alone..." Harry said, his stomach dropping again. He didn't mind them being together, but he wished they wouldn't go off on their own so often.

Luna looked at him knowingly. She nodded, "Ah yes, the two lovebirds..." Harry smiled awkwardly; he wasn't sure if everyone was aware of their relationship or not, but apparently Luna was.

"Are you lonely without them?" she asked bluntly, catching Harry by surprise. He looked into her protuberant eyes, wide with curiosity and conern, and smiled at her. "A bit," he replied honestly, "but now I have you here to keep me company." She smiled at him and leaned against the tree, gazing up at the sky.

"How do you think you would like to be a bird?" she asked him, quite out of the blue. "Erm, I guess it'd be alright. I like flying and all... but I wouldn't want to be a bird permanantly or anything," he added, almost wondering why she had brought it up. "I'd like to be a bird," she continued, "you're just so free up there."

Harry smiled. "Maybe you should join the Ravenclaw Quidditch team."

"No, I don't think that would be a good idea. I might get distracted. I get distracted kind of easily, if you hadn't noticed," she said seriously, looking into his eyes once more.

Once again, Harry felt his spirits lift. He felt a connection to Luna. No matter what odd things she discussed, there always seemed to be some truth to them.

He felt himself falling under a strange sort of spell. He was trapped in Luna's sparkling eyes, and couldn't seem to tear his own eyes away. He was drawing closer and closer to her. But suddenly, Luna broke him out of his spell.

"Harry are you alright?" she asked, blushing profusely. She wasn't sure why he had been acting like that, but SURELY he wasn't about to KISS her. Was he? Well, no, he obviously wasn't, because right then he murmured a hurried goodbye, got up, and left.

* * *

A/N: sorry my chapters are so short, but that's the way they always turn out when I've just started a story. I dunno, I like to write short chapters for some reason, lol. But anyway, I got this one up pretty quickly! (or so I thought ), so that's good... hehe. Well, tell me what you think ! 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Luna was disappointed that Harry had decided to leave, but she was still a bit flustered by his recent proximity. She took several quiet moments to ponder it, and only realized that she had been staring into space, unblinking when a group of fourth-year Slytherins walked by and giggled at her. She smiled at them good-naturedly, but felt that her privacy had been invaded, and decided to head back to the Ravenclaw common room to do some more work. She'd had a lovely break.

On her way toward the entrance hall, something caught her eye. Harry was standing off to the side, resting his head against a wall and looking like he was rather deep in thought. She thought it best not to disturb him, and so continued on her merry way.

Harry, however, was having a bit of a mental breakdown. He had no clue why he had almost just tried to kiss Luna. Sure, it was alright if he possibly had feelings for her, but he hadn't actually considered acting on them. His emotions had actually taken over his mind. He was used to things like that happening while fighting Voldemort or facing Draco Malfoy, but it had never happened with a girl before. He wasn't really sure what to do. If he and Luna were to be friends, he would just have to make sure it didn't happen again. 'Which might prove to be quite a difficult task...' he thought, pulling his head away from the wall and glancing back into the distance at the tree where Luna had been minutes before. But she was gone.

He was unhappy that she was no longer there, but figured he'd make the best of his time alone to do that Defense Against the Dark Arts essay that was just calling his name. He sighed, and walked unhappily toward the library, which he knew would be completely void of any sign of Hermione Granger.

* * *

Luna met Ginny Weasley in the hallway on the way to the Great Hall the next morning. They had quite a lovely discussion about Quidditch, but when they reached the entrance, they had to part ways to go to their separate tables. Luna was quite content sitting on her own, enjoying a lovely breakfast, with the occasional word to a neighbor. But today her eyes kept drifting over to the Gryffindor table to look at Harry. He appeared to be in a light-hearted conversation with his friends.

What she didn't know was that whenever she wasn't looking at him, Harry was looking at her. She was actually rather pretty with her silky blonde hair and her glittering blue eyes and... Harry had to check himself. He looked around his table to make sure nobody had noticed his momentary lapse into thoughts about Luna, but everyone appeared to be quite into their own conversations. All except for Ginny, who looked at him knowingly for a brief second before returning her attention to Hermione, with whom she was talking.

Harry's stomach jolted. Why had Ginny been looking at him like that? He hadn't been OBVIOUS, had he? But at that moment, he once again turned to look at Luna and was surprised to find that she was looking at him too.

This was twice in two days that they had caught each other. But that didn't mean anything, did it? Luna wasn't convinced. There were plenty of people for Harry Potter to choose from, why her? She shrugged and returned to her breakfast, deciding to ignore the urge to look at Harry any more that morning.

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione got up to leave, Luna was still seated, now heavily into a book. Harry looked at her, and had a sudden desire to go talk to her; a desire he was pretty sure he couldn't fight.

"You guys go on ahead," he said to his friends, heading over to the Ravenclaw table. They only looked slightly curious, but didn't complain- it gave them a moment alone before classes.

"Hi, Luna," he said, reaching her at last. She looked up, surprised. "Hello, Harry. Pleasant morning?" "Yeah, er, just thought I'd say hi. Care to... erm... want me to walk you to class?" he asked, awkwardly, not quite sure what he was doing. She smiled charmingly, put her book in her bag, and stood up to join him saying, "That would be lovely."

They headed toward the Potions dungeon, Luna's first class, silently at first, but soon they were talking animatedly.

"I don't really know much about fershaks, but I do know that they can be horrid pests when you get an infestation," she was saying, once again not making much sense, "but enough about that, anyway, did you hear that the Chudley Cannons drafted Robert Fernson?" Harry had been slightly surprised when he first found out that Luna knew about Quidditch, but now he was used to hearing her talk about it. Sometimes she spoke a few normal words amongst her nonsense.

Before long, they had reached the dungeon, and Harry left Luna with a short goodbye, having then to rush off to his next class. But he had a smile on his face that just wouldn't go away for the next few hours, causing both Ron and Hermione to look at him questioningly.

* * *

A/N: Yep yep, good times. I'm afraid that it's very difficult to keep Luna completely in character, however, and so I must say that it is likely that she has been or will be out of character a bit. But I'm trying to keep her in character as much as possible, lol. Erm, anyway, review! Cookies will be handed out if you do! Well.. virtual cookies. -hands out virual cookies ahead of time to those who review-. So now that's settled... 


End file.
